Ithan jolted awake with a ragged breath. The ceiling above him swam, shadows shifting where the lantern guttered against the wall. His body screamed with aches, each muscle knotting with protest, and a sick dizziness rolled through him, threatening to pitch the room sideways. For a moment, he lay there, gripping the sheets, chest heaving as he fought to steady himself.
His will won out. Slowly, stubbornly, he pushed himself upright. Sweat ran down his brow, his scarred torso shining in the dim light. He sat hunched on the edge of the bed the Jaguar Claw unit had rented for their stay in Ravenmarch, head in his hands, forcing the nausea down until his breath evened.
The storm still echoed in him, but his mind went elsewhere. Back to the dream. Back to Sophia.
It startled him how vivid she had been. The curve of her shawl wet with rain, the sharp warmth in her eyes when she spoke his name. He hadn't allowed himself to think of her since leaving Mariathios. Not truly. That part of his life had ended the night he lost Larson, when survival became his only truth. And yet, here she was—alive again in memory, slipping past the walls he had built.
A knock startled him. He rose, stiff but steady, and crossed the small room. Only when he pulled the door open did he realize his chest was bare. Pale scars crossed his torso like a map of battles past, some thin and faded, others raised and jagged.
Helen stood there. Her gaze swept over him, not shy, not pitying—measuring. She lingered on his frame just long enough to confirm what she sought: the storm had not broken him. Relief softened her expression, and a small smile curved her lips.
"You look better," she said.
"Captain," Ithan rasped, voice hoarse from disuse. "How… how did I get back here?"
Her brows lifted. "You don't remember?"
"Not clearly," he admitted.
"Kallus carried you," Helen said.
Ithan blinked, the words not fitting at first. "He did? But—he was still fighting when I fell. He was—" He cut himself off, realization dawning. "I see. He finished him, then."
A voice rang down the corridor before Helen could reply.
"You doubt me that much, Ashborn?"
Kallus leaned against the wall's corner, a bowl in hand. Steam rose from the broth within, the smell of meat and herbs wafting down the hall. He tore into a chunk with easy relish, his grin wide, his teeth flashing.
Ithan straightened, but what struck him wasn't the grin. It was the sensation that coiled off Kallus like an unseen tide. Mysteries—more than one—woven into him, each with the weight of Bathos. Ithan's pulse quickened as he felt it.
"You…" His voice caught in disbelief. "You've reached Bathos?"
Kallus's grin only widened, broth dripping from his chin as he laughed low in his throat. "Heehee… You're not the only one who claimed a prize from that cursed hunt, Ashborn."
Ithan's hand curled unconsciously around the doorframe. His mind flicked back to the chamber, to the shadows at the edge of the storm where Kallus had vanished into his own battle against the Orca who had conjured false men from mist.
And memory bled into the telling of that fight.
~
While Ithan clashed with Atticus in the heart of the storm, Kallus found himself cornered at the far end of the crystal chamber. The mist coiled thick around him, cold and oily, muting the storm's light until even the crystal veins seemed to dim. His breath left white plumes in the air, frost gathering along the haft of his trident as he readied himself.
From the mist, the Orca mercenary stepped forward—lean and predatory, his armor lacquered black and veined with crimson, his eyes gleaming like coals. Shadows trailed him like hunting hounds, spilling from his body with each movement.
"I've heard of you," the mercenary drawled, his voice doubled by an echo, as if two men spoke from the same throat. "Kallus of the Frosted Depths. The trident-wielder who drowned a Dionian captain in ice. Tell me—" he spread his arms as his shadow peeled free of him, taking form as a second self, "—can you tell which of us bleeds, and which of us is smoke?"
The doppelgänger's smile was the same, its weapon a perfect mirror. Together they advanced, step for step, until ten shadows stood in the mist, every one of them Kallus's enemy.
Kallus chuckled, low and dangerous, mist curling from his lips. "I don't care if it's one or a hundred. I'll freeze them all the same."
The shadows lunged.
Steel and ice clashed in a blur. One copy struck high, another swept low; Kallus pivoted, trident singing as its runes ignited. He speared the ground, and frost exploded outward in jagged spikes. Three shadows shattered on impact, their forms bursting into smoke. But the mercenary's true blade cut through the mist, grazing across Kallus's ribs, cold fire biting into flesh.
He hissed, slamming his trident into the attacker's chest—but the body burst apart, vanishing like fog in sunlight. A fake.
The real one struck from behind. A blade carved across Kallus's shoulder, deep enough to stagger him, blood searing hot against the chill air.
"You'll never find me," the mercenary's voice echoed, one copy after another repeating the words in chorus. "Your eyes mean nothing here. My Mystery is the Doppelgänger of Oblivion. Every shadow you cut down will rise again."
Kallus pressed his palm to the wound, frost spreading across the flesh to staunch the bleeding. His grin widened even through the pain, his breath a plume of ice. "Oblivion, huh? Then I'll answer it with the Deep Sea's Frost."
He spun the trident in both hands, runes burning with light. The temperature plummeted. The mist slowed, thickened, until even the shadows faltered. The floor beneath them groaned as a layer of ice spread outward, climbing up the pillars, choking the chamber in rime.
The shadows charged, but they were slower now, their forms sluggish as the frost clung to them. Kallus surged forward, each thrust of the trident shattering copies into shards of frozen smoke.
Then he saw it—the mercenary himself, the only figure whose breath fogged the air.
"Got you."
The trident speared straight through his chest. Ice bloomed outward in jagged spikes, freezing flesh, blood, and shadow alike. The mercenary gasped, his eyes wide as frost claimed him. "Impossible—"
Kallus wrenched the trident free, twisting hard as the steel scraped bone. The mercenary's chest split wide, frost racing through his veins until his body fractured into frozen shards. With a final heave, the Blue Orca broke apart, scattering across the crystalline floor in a storm of glittering fragments.
For a heartbeat, silence reigned. Kallus stood over the wreckage, his breath a plume of white mist, trident dripping with frost and blood. Then—
The shards melted. Ice bled into shadow, fragments dissolving into oily smoke that coiled low across the ground. From the haze, laughter rolled out—jagged, echoing, impossible to pin to a single throat.
"Ha! Ha! Ha!" The voice came from everywhere, bouncing off the crystal pillars, rumbling in Kallus's bones. "Did you truly think a Protos Mystique could kill me?"
Shapes moved in the smoke. One, two, then a dozen. Figures stepped free of the haze—each wearing the same armor, the same crimson eyes, the same cruel grin. Every copy carried a blade, steel blackened by the mist clinging to it.
"I am Pelops," the voice thundered, though every mouth moved in unison. "Of Nekarion, the underworld city where shadows themselves are fed on blood. I've cut down more men than you can fathom, drowned whole companies in the dark. You?"
They raised their blades as one, steel gleaming in the stormlight. Their killing intent pressed like a weight against Kallus's chest, sharp and suffocating.
"You are nothing but meat for the blade."
The doppelgängers surged forward, a tide of shadows armed with death, their forms flickering between smoke and steel as they closed in on him from every angle.
Kallus grinned, blood dripping down his arm. He shifted his grip on the trident, frost hissing across its length.
"Then let's see if smoke can bleed."
The chamber rang with the clash of steel and the hiss of frost. Shadows poured in from every angle—blades flashing, grins identical, voices echoing in chorus. Kallus fought with a predator's rhythm, trident sweeping wide, each thrust snapping another phantom into shards of ice. But for every doppelgänger that fell, two more crawled free of the smoke.
His wounds burned, shallow cuts multiplying, his breath frosting heavier with each exhale. He gritted his teeth, dragging his trident back into guard. This isn't adding up.
Pelops's laughter rattled off the crystal walls. "You'll never kill me, trident-bearer. I've cut down more men than you'll ever meet, and all of them walk with me now. Nekarion's gift!"
"Nekarion…" Kallus muttered, circling, eyes flicking from shadow to shadow. His lips curled into a thin smile. "That underworld pit. Then you're a Chthonian, aren't you? One of their legacies."
The doppelgängers paused mid-step, just for a breath. It was enough of a tell. Kallus's grin widened. "Thought so."
He lunged, skewering one phantom through the chest. It screamed, writhed, then burst into smoke. Kallus watched closely—not the copy, but the mist that lingered afterward. It pulled ever so faintly, a current in the haze, streaming toward one figure standing further back.
There. The anchor.
Kallus tested again. He feinted left, baiting another shadow to overcommit. His trident cut low, breaking it apart. Again, the smoke drifted, drawn subtly toward the same figure.
"Found you," he whispered.
Pelops's true self stood just beyond the ring of copies, his grin faltering as Kallus leveled his trident. "Doesn't matter if you've guessed. Knowing won't save you. My shadows will drown you, body and soul!"
The phantoms surged all at once, a black tide of blades.
But Kallus didn't flinch. He drove his trident into the frozen ground, runes blazing blue, and shouted:
"Mystery of Aegaeon: Logos Kryos — Truth of the Sea's Frost!"
Ice erupted outward, walls of rime spearing upward in jagged lines, herding the shadows aside like cattle. Through the storm of frost, he charged—not at the swarm, but at the anchor body.
Pelops's eyes widened as the trident thrust for his heart.
Kallus's trident drove forward like a spear of winter. It pierced the chosen Pelops through the chest, the steel biting deep, frost blooming across his armor. The mercenary gasped, his crimson eyes widening as frost spread over his ribs, seizing the breath in his lungs.
For a moment, the shadows faltered. The tide of doppelgängers froze mid-step, their forms flickering and unstable. Kallus grinned through bloodied teeth, leaning into the thrust. "Knew it. Doesn't matter how many masks you wear, there's always a body that bleeds."
He wrenched the weapon free. Pelops staggered, coughing up black ichor that steamed in the cold. His form sagged, weaker than the bravado he had worn.
But then he laughed. A low, guttural sound that swelled into madness.
"Clever… clever for a Protos," Pelops rasped, shadow leaking from the wound like tar. "But you think you've unmasked me? You haven't seen what it means to deepen a Mystery."
The smoke roared outward, swallowing the chamber in choking dark. The wound sealed before Kallus's eyes, not by flesh knitting, but by Aether pouring through veins of shadow. Pelops stood straighter, his body bleeding radiance black as night.
"Protos was just splitting my shadow," Pelops said, his voice echoing a dozenfold. "At Bathos—"
The floor split with a groan. Shadows bled up from the cracks, dragging themselves into the shape of warriors, faces warped by oblivion. Each held a weapon of smoke that dripped with killing intent. Dozens, then hundreds, their whispers crawling into Kallus's ears—men and women he did not know, victims of Pelops, screaming fragments of their last breaths.
"—I am legion."
The army surged. The weight of killing intent crushed down, sharp as blades at his throat. Every phantom moved like the real Pelops, indistinguishable in their hunger, their eyes hollow pits that promised only death.
Kallus hissed, blood dripping from his shoulder, frost thickening on his breath. "Bathos, huh? So that's the difference." He braced his trident, runes burning brighter. "Good. I've been waiting to test myself against the deep."
The first wave struck, blades crashing against the trident's haft, shadows screaming as his frost consumed them. Kallus pivoted, spinning in a storm of ice, his weapon striking true—but for every phantom shattered, two more pressed in.
He ground his teeth. "This isn't a fight of numbers. It's a fight of truth."
His eyes cut through the army, seeking the pulse of Aether that anchored it all. Somewhere within the swarm, the real Pelops still bled. And he swore he'd find him.
The chamber drowned in shadows. Steel rang against steel, phantom blades shrieking as they hacked at Kallus from every side. His trident blurred, the haft spinning to catch one strike, the tines driving through another phantom's chest, only for the body to burst into mist that stung his eyes and throat. He moved like a man caught in a storm at sea, never still, always a heartbeat from being dragged under.
Pelops's laughter came from everywhere. "Do you see it now, Frost-bearer? This is what Bathos means. My shadows do not end. Every man I kill feeds me, every life becomes another blade. You cannot exhaust the dead!"
Kallus's boots skidded across the ice he'd laid down, cuts burning across his arms where phantom steel had broken through. Still, his eyes narrowed, studying. The way the mist thickened around each fallen phantom. The way Pelops's wound had closed with that black radiance, not blood. The whispers of voices that weren't his.
Not just shadows… echoes. Souls chained to him.
A phantom lunged low; he spun the trident and smashed it aside, frost erupting in a spray. He ducked another strike, heart hammering, thoughts racing faster than his body. "Nekarion," he muttered between breaths, piecing it together. "Chthonian legacy. Not light, not flame, not storm—Shadows. The Mystery of forgotten flesh."
Pelops's voice answered from a dozen mouths at once: "Name it if you wish. Truth doesn't save you."
But Kallus's grin cut through the blood on his lips. "No… it defines you." He twirled the trident, the frost shrieking along the chamber floor as he forced space between himself and the encroaching army. His breath came hard and hot in the cold air, but his voice was steady, iron.
"Mystery of Oblivion: Logos Skia — Truth of Shadowed Flesh."
For a moment, the phantom horde paused, flickering, as if the very naming of their existence drew their essence taut. Pelops's true form stepped forward from among them, his grin faltering as he realized Kallus had understood the depth of it.
"You've seen through me?" Pelops sneered, though his eyes flickered with unease. "And what of it? You still can't endure."
Kallus leveled his trident, ice crawling up the haft in jagged veins. His muscles trembled, but his smirk was sharp. "Maybe not. But now I know what beast I'm spearing. And sooner or later—every shadow leads back to its master."
The horde surged again, and Kallus braced for the storm, knowing its name gave him a weapon as sharp as any frost-born blade.
The phantoms surged again, their blades ringing against the trident, their whispers gnawing at his ears. Kallus's arms shook with the strain, his body battered and bleeding. But his grin only widened, sharp and wolfish, even as blood ran down his side.
"You think Bathos makes you untouchable," Kallus said, his voice carrying above the chorus of shadows. He shoved one phantom back with the butt of his trident, then spun it in a wide arc, frost crackling outward. "But you're not the only one who's deepened his truth."
Pelops paused, narrowing his eyes. "Impossible. You'd already be dead if you—"
The trident's runes flared, not just with frost, but with something deeper. Briny air rushed into the chamber, sharp as salt and heavy as the sea. The ground slickened beneath their feet as water seeped up through the ice, not mundane water, but liquid laced with radiance—Aether itself, flowing like a tide.
Kallus straightened, his chest heaving, eyes glimmering with cold blue light. "Aether Infusion—Sea's Call."
The battlefield answered. Streams of liquid Aether curled around him like serpents of shimmering brine, flooding the chamber in knee-deep water that swirled with salt and frost. Each droplet magnified his cold, every breath of the mercenary's shadows hissed as the water clung to them.
Pelops snarled, his copies faltering against the rising flood. "What—what is this?"
"My lineage," Kallus said, his voice like the crack of waves against stone. "The truth of Poseidon himself. Dominion of the Abyssal Sea."
He drove the trident down. The flood roared.
Bathos Technique—Abyssal Undertow.
The water churned into a spiraling vortex, dragging everything toward its heart. Shadow phantoms screamed as they were caught in the pull, their forms distorting, unraveling as the brine stripped away their cohesion. One by one they dissolved, shredded into mist that the current devoured. The vortex deepened, its pull inexorable, like the maw of the sea itself.
Pelops staggered, his doppelgängers collapsing around him, their voices cut off mid-cry. He raised his blade against the pull, eyes wide with disbelief as the abyss dragged at his limbs. "No… shadows can't drown—"
"They can when the sea claims them," Kallus growled. His trident spun, and the vortex surged higher, a spiral of frost and salt swallowing the last of the phantom army.
The chamber shook as the storm of water Aether slammed into the floor, scattering what remained of Pelops's illusions. Silence followed, broken only by the drip of brine and the rasp of Kallus's breath.
He stood amid the flood, his trident gleaming, the aura of the Abyssal Sea coiling around him. His wounds still bled, but the Aether coursing through his veins steadied him, made him feel like the tide itself.
He raised his gaze to the lone figure that remained—Pelops, no longer hidden by his shadows.
"You're not the only Bathos, mercenary," Kallus said, voice low and cold. "And in the depths, only one of us gets to breathe."
Kallus surged forward, the ground exploding in sprays of brine and frost beneath his boots. His movement was no longer that of a man—it was the crash of surf, the inexorable pull of the tide. Surge Step. Each stride carried him like a wave breaking on stone, his trident a crest of steel and ice that hammered toward Pelops's chest.
For the first time, Pelops was forced out of the shadows and into the open. His blade met the trident with a ringing clash, sparks flying as steel ground against runed bronze. Kallus pressed harder, strike after strike flowing like the ocean's rhythm—relentless, rolling, each thrust followed by a sweeping cut that left Pelops no room to breathe.
The air thickened around them. A weight pressed against Pelops's limbs, heavy as the depths, every motion feeling as though he fought underwater. He realized it was no illusion—the Abyssal Dominion Kallus had summoned was bearing down on him, a pressure field that stole speed and strength with every heartbeat. The cold gnawed at his fingers, turning each parry into a struggle.
Still, Pelops didn't falter. His grin was strained, sweat gleaming on his brow, but his blade flickered quick and sure, intercepting thrusts that would have split him open. He let Kallus drive him back, all the while his body pulsed faintly with a dark glow. Shadow Aether gathered in his veins, whispering through his bones, waiting to be unleashed again.
Kallus caught it, the way his opponent's strikes bought time rather than space, the way his grin never reached his eyes. He's stalling. Gathering power.
"Not bad with a blade," Kallus admitted, spinning his trident in a flourish that whipped sea-spray across Pelops's face. The next strike came down like a hammer of ice, driving him to one knee. "But the sea doesn't wait for men to catch their breath."
Aether burned in his blood, coursing through his muscles, sharpening his every motion. His strikes grew heavier, faster—the overwhelming tide pressing in from all sides. Pelops's parries turned desperate, sparks leaping as he struggled under the assault. It was only a matter of time before the abyss swallowed him whole.
But before Kallus could drive his trident home, Pelops's lips curled into a snarl and he spat an incantation—his voice layering with echoes until the words reverberated across the chamber.
"Logos Skia — Truth of Shadowed Flesh."
The crystal walls dimmed, swallowed in black haze. Dozens of shapes tore themselves free from the mercenary's shadow, coalescing into armed figures. Each bore Pelops's face, each gripped a blade slick with phantom aether. Their eyes burned hollow and red as they hurled themselves at Kallus in a murderous tide, giving their master space to slip back into the gloom.
Kallus only grinned. The water swirled tighter around his ankles, his trident glowing with brine-runes. "Hiding again? Heh. Then drown in this."
He slammed the haft into the flooded ground.
"Logos Kymata — Truth of the Wave."
The battlefield answered with a roar. Streams of liquid aether heaved upward, rising like walls of glassy water. They surged forward in rolling pulses, crashing into the oncoming doppelgängers. Each wave struck not as a single blow but in rhythmic oscillations, like the relentless heartbeat of the sea.
Phantoms staggered, some knocked from their feet, others splintered into smoke as the currents slammed them against the crystal pillars. Their formation shattered; blades that should have converged in perfect chorus now flailed, uncoordinated, as the water's rhythm disrupted their movements.
Kallus advanced through the surges, every step timed with the tide, his body carried by the same rhythm. His trident whirled in arcs of frost and spray, cutting down those the waves staggered. Each strike landed with the weight of an ocean behind it.
The chamber became a battlefield of flood and shadow: black mist twisting against luminous currents, echoes of the drowned shrieking as they were swept under again.
And Kallus, smiling through blood and salt, pressed forward like the tide itself—relentless, inevitable. His voice rose in another incantation, rough yet steady, as frost swirled thick around him.
"Mystery of Aegaeon: Logos Syllogí Págou—Gathering of ice"
The words rang like iron in the cold air. Frost condensed at the trident's tips, each of its three blades brimming with jagged brilliance. The ice didn't just form—it howled, alive with the crushing weight of the deep. Kallus felt the Poseidon Mystery in his veins pulse in resonance with the Aegaeon relic, sea and frost binding as one. The surge made his arms tremble, but the power was undeniable, the trident burning past its limit under his grip.
He launched forward in a blur, Surge step carrying him along the crest of the waves he had summoned. The water lifted him, propelled him, his body a spearhead driven by tide and storm. Every thrust of the trident split through shadow flesh, scattering phantoms into smoke and ice shards. The chamber filled with the sound of shattering echoes, each phantom death a hollow scream.
But Pelops was not broken. His laugh cut through the din—low, jagged, tinged with strain. His doppelgängers dissolved all at once, collapsing into black mist that spread across the chamber floor. The air thickened, turning heavy, choking, until even the crystal walls dulled.
From the haze rose a forest of Pelopses. Not mere doubles, but a domain of shadows, each figure moving with the same murderous intent. Their forms bled in and out of solidity, their blades dripping Oblivion, every strike a threat to body and soul alike.
It was his most taxing technique, one even Aether infusion could not cleanse him of, but Pelops unleashed it regardless: a personal hunting ground carved of shadow mist, the battlefield itself now his weapon.
Kallus's expression hardened, but his grin didn't fade. He lifted his trident high, chanting again, his voice rising against the tide of whispers that filled the mist.
" Logos Hydros — Truth of the Flowing Sea."
Liquid Aether swirled around him, bursting into rushing currents that coiled like serpents. The streams circled his body in layered waves, surging upward in barriers that bent and flexed. Each phantom strike that landed was swallowed by the rushing water, its force softened, its edge dulled. The sea flowed ceaselessly, reshaping and reforming with every blow.
And when Oblivion's blades did cut through, trying to drain his life, the flowing sea blunted the corruption, washing away what would have otherwise sunk deep into his veins. Kallus hissed at the lingering sting—he could feel the sap of vitality trying to gnaw at him. But the brine surged, carrying it off.
He wasn't about to be caught by that trick again. With frost at his trident, tides beneath his feet, and the abyss at his back, Kallus braced himself. Pelops's shadows might own the mist—but the sea would always drown the dark.
And now, Kallus knew it was time to end this.
His chest heaved, his breath misting in the thick haze. Every motion of his trident left trails of frost in the air, and yet he could feel the strain gnawing at him. There weren't many more times he could force Aether infusion in a place like this—especially not in the Ashen Field, where the very air carried the risk of corruption.
He steadied himself, forcing the thought away. One more push.
His blood answered with a pulse of brine. Unlike others who faltered under this cursed land, his lineage gave him grace: Poseidon's aspect allowed him to draw in ambient Aether, twisting it into brine-breath, cleansing the poison that seeped into his bones. The protective ward his captain had given him burned faintly on his arm, the runes glowing against his skin—but he knew its price. Each pulse stripped at his vitality, even here at Bathos. He couldn't lean on it much longer.
He drew a deep breath, lungs flooding with liquid Aether that burned cold and sharp. His incantation thundered through the mist:
"Logos Pneuma Thalassion — Truth of the Sea-Breath."
Power surged through him, filling every vein with the strength of the tide. His body braced for the impossible. He would cast two truths in unison.
"Logos Thalassa — Truth of the Boundless Depth!"
The chamber convulsed. Torrents of abyssal seawater roared into being, conjured from nothing, crashing forward in walls like collapsing waves. The ground shook beneath their weight as the chamber flooded in brine. Pelops staggered, his doppelgängers slowing mid-stride. The pressure was suffocating, a heaviness that dragged at limbs and lungs, the weight of the ocean itself pressing down. Even the shadows moved sluggishly, their forms warping under the crushing depth.
Kallus lifted his trident high, the runes burning cold blue. His voice rang again:
"Mystery of Aegaeon: Logos Kryos — Truth of the Sea's Frost!"
The resonance struck like a hammer blow. Water Aether and frost fused, the abyssal tide solidifying into a glacier mid-surge. The crashing sea turned to jagged walls of black-blue ice, spikes and sheets that froze everything they touched. Shadows shrieked as they were locked in crystal coffins, frozen phantoms shattering as the frost consumed them whole. The mist domain splintered, the choking darkness breaking apart as cracks of cold light spread through it.
Kallus's trident blazed brighter, its three blades heavy with concentrated frost. The Logos Syllogí Págou he had primed earlier thrummed, hungry for release.
He lunged, carried by Surge Step on the frozen currents. His body blurred like a cresting wave, his trident a spear of winter.
The strike hit true.
Steel pierced through Pelops's chest, the frost detonating outward in a shockwave. The mist domain collapsed with a scream, phantoms bursting into shards of ice before vanishing. An explosion of cold tore through the chamber, the floor cracking, the walls glittering with sudden rime.
Pelops's body convulsed, black ichor steaming as it froze along the wound. His blade fell from numb fingers, clattering against the crystal. For the first time, his voice faltered.
"No…" he rasped, mist spilling from his lips, "the shadows… cannot drown…"
But the abyss had claimed him.
Kallus ripped the trident free, the frost spreading through his veins, his internal body freezing from the inside, and killing him instantly. Silence followed, broken only by Kallus's ragged breath and the drip of brine freezing along the floor. He stood tall, trident in hand, his aura still carrying the weight of the abyss. The fight was over.
And not only was it over—Kallus realized as he stood amid the frozen wreckage—that his fight had ended with more than victory. The trident in his hands throbbed with new weight, the runes burning deeper, brighter than before. He could feel it in his bones: the relic had advanced, elevated from Protos to Bathos, its resonance now answering his Aether infusion as though the abyss itself had chosen him.
All in good time, he thought, resting the haft against his shoulder. He allowed himself one sharp breath, salt and frost filling his lungs, before the silence shattered.
A thunderclap shook the chamber. The ground trembled beneath his boots, and a flare of white-gold light seared the mist. Kallus's head snapped toward the sound—toward Ithan.
He moved quickly across the battlefield, frost hissing underfoot as he passed through the ruins of his duel. The air grew charged with static, the tang of ozone thick on his tongue. Sparks still leapt from cracked crystal pillars, arcs of lightning snaking across the ground.
And there, in the center of the devastation, lay the evidence of Ithan's struggle.
Traces of lightning were carved into the floor like veins of fire, mingled with scorch-marks of white-gold flame that still smoldered faintly, their heat lashing at the air. The battlefield bore scars of two Mysteries clashing—storms and fire gnawed into the stone, leaving it raw and broken.
Kallus's gaze landed on the fallen form of Atticus. The warrior's body was a ruin, his armor blackened and fused to his flesh, smoke still curling from the burns. The man twitched faintly, clinging to life as much as he could.
And then Kallus saw him.
Ithan was slumped across the battlefield, his shoulders heaving with shallow breaths. Blood streaked his skin, and the pallor of exhaustion clung to him like a shroud. Yet in his hands he gripped the Lance, its shaft blackened bronze veined with glowing gold, stormlight humming faintly within it.
Kallus stopped, staring for a long moment. It wasn't just that Ithan held it. It was the way the Lance responded to him—the faint flickers of lightning that coiled around his wrists, the embers of flame that refused to gutter out.
He had bonded with it. The prize of the hunt, a relic steeped in the storm's wrath, now answered to the Ashborn.
Kallus exhaled slowly, the ghost of a grin tugging at his lips. "So," he murmured, his voice carrying in the crackling silence. "It seems the Ashborn is done with his fight too."